


Untouched

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock Has A Low Sex Drive, Sherlock isn't used to being touched, but he likes bringing John to orgasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days post-Manchester, and Sherlock and John explore a little more of how their relationship works on the physical side. They want different things... or perhaps it can best be said that they want similar things but in different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouched

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [不触碰](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2070171) by [shawnordaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawnordaisy/pseuds/shawnordaisy)



> This story has now been [translated into Chinese by shawnordaisy](http://www.mtslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=127258&page=1&extra=#pid2399284).
> 
> I'm meant to be working on NaNoWriMo but the mood hit for this one and wouldn't go away.
> 
> If you're curious about my non-fannish writing you could check out my [ Kitty and Cadaver](http://kittyandcadaver.wordpress.com/) project or my [romance/erotica fiction](http://harrisheart.wordpress.com/). I do other stuff too, but that's what I'm working on at the moment.

John Watson was a thoroughly contented man. Three days post-Manchester, he wasn’t sure there’d ever been a time when he was more content. Back home at Baker Street now, there had been much kissing. Huge amounts of kissing. An _inordinate_ amount of kissing. Also hugging. And cuddling. And spooning, at night, in John’s bed.

John knew that Sherlock didn’t necessarily sleep the whole night, but even without sleeping, there he was, sliding into the bed, with whatever books or articles he was reading, a long thigh pressed to John’s, hip to John’s hip, a hand playing with John’s hair or resting on his arm. Kisses goodnight and the closeness of warm bodies.

Four days ago, John thought his relationship with Sherlock Holmes would remain intense but essentially low-tactile. Sure, they crowded into each other’s personal space constantly, touching hands, arms, backs, legs more often than was strictly appropriate _for just flatmates_ , which they _weren’t;_ _obviously_. It was undeniable, too, that after an arduous case, the first to collapse on the sofa would inevitably find the other sprawled with head or feet in the former’s lap.

So: more than friends, most definitely. They had been together, without ever having been _together,_ for six months.  But the terms of their togetherness were predicated on some key mistaken assumptions. Until Manchester.

 _Thank God for Manchester_ , was John’s litany (and Sherlock’s too).

There hadn’t been any more orgasms since the night in that Manchester hotel, but John was content with that too. He hadn’t been lying when he told Sherlock he’d preferred to be celibate and unkissed and with Sherlock than having sex with anyone else. And Sherlock had been true to his word that the kissing most definitely would stay. Sherlock had been copiously insistent on that point. He was even shaving twice a day – and making John do the same – to avoid double stubble-rash.

John was becoming a huge fan of how Sherlock would stand behind him at the sink and kiss the back of his neck while John shaved with an electric razor. Then, while Sherlock applied a razor to his own pale skin, John would in turn stand behind him, arms around his waist, freshly-shaven cheek pressed between Sherlock’s shoulder blades.

John found that having his arms finally full of Sherlock filled up his heart as well. _Content_ didn’t begin to cover it. _Outrageously happy_ came a lot closer.

On this, the third day post-Manchester, Sherlock was standing at the stove, poking at something unspeakable in a large aluminium pot and pausing to take notes from time to time, while John sat at the table doing the crossword. John was acutely aware of the moment when Sherlock stopped stirring and turned the stove off (thankfully putting the lid on what John suspected was an old shoe, some algae and a dead bird Sherlock had found in the back yard when he’d gone looking for a length of hosepipe).

John was very aware, too, of Sherlock washing his hands, drying them on a tea towel and striding over to the table where John sat.

“Deliquesce,” said Sherlock at his elbow.

“Hmm?”

“Fourteen down.”

“ _To decompose_. Huh.” John wrote in the letters.

“In broader terms, it simply means for a solid object to become liquid through exposure to moisture in the air. I dislike crossword puzzles. They are so imprecise.”

“But I’ve learned a new word, so there’s that. I’ll look for an opportunity to use it correctly in a sentence.”

“There’s no doubt in our line of work that an opportunity shall arise.”

It should have been appalling but John only laughed. “John wondered how much longer it would take for Anderson’s brain to deliquesce in the humidity, considering that the job was already half done,” he offered.

John had not yet forgiven Anderson for his part in what had happened a year ago. The jump. The fall. Moriarty, and the despised tabloids. John’s outrageous happiness did not extend as far as forgiving that.

“Forget him,” murmured Sherlock, running the pad of his thumb across John’s bottom lip, “Come to bed. If you’re amenable, I am very much in the mood to bring you to orgasm.”

John lipped at Sherlock’s thumb, his eyes bright with humour. “I trust that it wasn’t poaching a dead sparrow and a tattered Nike trainer that led you to this mood.”

“Reebok, actually. And no. It was watching you desist from throwing Anderson into the Thames this morning.” After Anderson had been particularly obnoxious. “I find your restraint stimulating.”

“Really?” John took Sherlock’s hand and kissed his wrist.

“Yes. It isn’t obvious to the others. They think you are laid back as a rule. They fail to see your constant vigilance.”

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” John had kissed every part of Sherlock’s wrist now and was working his way over his palm, down each of his fingers. Sherlock’s hand stretched out, as though arching into the touch.

“You are control disguised as calmness.” Sherlock curled his hand around John’s jaw and made him look up. “I liked it, at Manchester, when you remained controlled for my benefit.” John had been assiduous in not touching Sherlock in ways that Sherlock didn’t want to be touched; in not demanding more of Sherlock than Sherlock was comfortable experiencing.

Sherlock bent down and ghosted his lips over John’s mouth, over his nose and forehead, back down to his mouth, which he then kissed more urgently. John leaned up into the kiss.

“I liked it so much more,” Sherlock whispered, “When you let me touch you. When you gave up your vigilance for me. I want you to do that again. I want to touch your body. I want to give you pleasure, John. I want you to abandon your control and to come for me.”

“Christ,” John’s exhaled shakily, “Keep talking like that and it’s likely to happen right here at the table.”

“Bed,” said Sherlock.

“God, yes,” said John, grinning.

They stripped in Sherlock’s bedroom, strewing clothes into the corner, and climbed under the sheets. Their bodies were pressed close together, wrapped up close, kissing, for long minutes. John’s erection pressed into Sherlock’s stomach and his hands ran tenderly across Sherlock’s shoulders and arms, along his back. Sherlock was only half hard, but that was all right. Sherlock’s arousal in that sense was infrequent and unpredictable. Sherlock was himself perfectly content with the skin on skin contact without the pressure of having to do anything more, and John was perfectly content for Sherlock to set the pace for his own desire.

“Is this okay?” murmured John, fingers of one hand describing small circles in the small of Sherlock’s back while the other hand caressed Sherlock’s scalp through his disordered curls.

“Mmmm.” Sherlock had one hand curved possessively over John’s backside and was pulling him closer. That gesture was new, and seemed oddly more intimate and wanton than in Manchester, where he had simply wrapped a hand around John’s erection and stroked him to completion. But John responded well to it, moaning and thrusting his hips before stilling them again.

“No,” Sherlock told him, “Don’t stop. Move. I want you to _move_. I want to feel you let go.”

With a whimper that was half arousal, half delight, John gave in to his body’s impulses and rolled his hips while Sherlock’s hand kneaded his arse. His erection pressed against Sherlock’s warm, plump cock, against the softness of his belly.

“That’s it, John. Yes. Beautiful.” Sherlock ran his hand down John’s thigh, encouraging him to crook a leg over Sherlock’s own long thigh, slotting them closer together, then returned his hand to John’s backside.

“Christ, Sherlock. _God_.”

Sherlock kissed John’s cheeks, his jaw, he scraped his teeth over John’s lower lip then pressed their mouths together, his tongue seeking John’s. That was new too: not kissing with his whole mouth like that, but _liking_ it.

Previous, long-past experiences had felt invasive and grotesque, but this, with John, this was marvellous. It was intense and intimate, but somehow also playful and undemanding.  John kissed Sherlock as though it were enough in itself, and not something to be _got through_ before other things could be poked and pushed into other places.  Sherlock had been through quite enough, _thank you_ , of partners wanting only to get to the point of penetration, as though all the rest were merely a necessary evil, something to be endured until the fucking could commence. His long celibacy had not been purely the result of a low libido.

John’s hands smoothed over Sherlock’s arms, shoulders and back; he held Sherlock close as he nuzzled at Sherlock’s throat, kissed his chest, his jaw, his ears. Sherlock had begun to push gently into John as well, meeting those rolling thrusts with small, welcoming movements. Sherlock had pulled John on top of him, so that John straddled him now, and both Sherlock’s hands were roaming John’s body, his back, his arse, his thighs; he was still only half hard, but hard enough to provide some friction.

“Do you want… do you… I can… use your hand if you… if you.. want… if…” John was panting hard and finding it difficult to form sentences.

Sherlock understood anyway. “Shh, John. I want this. I want you. Let go.”

With a gasping moan, the motion of John’s hips transitioned from the sensuous roll to a grinding thrust. “Oh God, Sherlock. God. You… you….”

“That’s it.” One of Sherlock’s hands slid over John’s bum and between his spread legs, so that he could fondle John’s tightening balls. John’s voice hitched up an octave as he thrust, forward against Sherlock’s body, backward against his hand, again, and again.

“Sh-sh-sherlock. Oh. God. I’m I’m I’m…”

“Yes. John. _Yes_.” Sherlock’s breath was a soft ghost against the shell of John’s ear and served only to encourage John to the brink. Sherlock’s hips pushing firmly up against John, tipped him over.  John thrust and gasped and came and came, forehead pressed to Sherlock’s collar bone. When he collapsed, spent, panting and exhausted, Sherlock wound his arms around John’s torso and held him tight, peppering kisses over his face.

John, grinning, leaned up to kiss Sherlock’s lips once, twice, three and four times, before nuzzling into his throat and lying limply across Sherlock’s chest. “God. That was fantastic.”

Sherlock bumped his nose against John’s temple and dropped a kiss there. “Yes. It was.”

John laughed breathily, happily. “Do you want anything? For you?”

“No. I like this. This gives me a great deal of pleasure, John.”

John hummed blissfully. “Good. But if you ever want anything – anything – just tell me, okay?”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock replied, suspended between amusement and irritation, “You’ve made yourself quite clear.”

John picked up on the irritation and sighed. “I’m not trying to pressure you into sex you don’t want, Sherlock, I’m talking about…”

“Yes, yes, I know, you’ve done your research…”

“That’s right, I have,” John propped himself up a little to look into Sherlock’s eyes, “And some of it says that your partner may not want orgasms but may feel silly about asking for other things they like. So… don’t feel you can’t ask, yeah? If you want me to, I don’t know, massage your feet, or sing to you…”

Sherlock relaxed again, letting the irritation bleed away. He curled an arm around John’s waist and splayed his hand over the small of his back. “You’re a terrible singer.”

“Bastard,” but he was smiling, and laid his head back onto Sherlock’s chest, “Or, there was this one site, one of the commenters liked having her hair washed but felt ridiculous asking, so…”

“Washing my hair? Really?”

“I’m in a lovely mood, Sherlock, stop being a twat.”

Sherlock kissed the top of his head. “I’ll let you know if I want anything.”

For a while they dozed, satisfied, if sticky. Then John snuffled himself awake and wriggled under the sheets, trying to get more comfortable. Sherlock jabbed at his shifting thighs with impatient fingers. “Shhh.”

“Need the loo.”

Sherlock gave a disgruntled huff and threw himself flat on his back, allowing John to clamber over him to get out of bed. He opened his eyes at the silence that followed, to see John gazing fondly down at him.

“I need a shower, too” said John, “So do you.”

“Is that an invitation to join you?”

“If you want to,” John’s smile was affectionate and without expectation, “I don’t have to wash your hair.”

“Hmm.” Hair-washing aside, Sherlock didn’t know if he wanted to share a shower with John. That was another new thing. His limited experience with sharing a shower in the past had led to unwanted sexual advances, a nasty slip and an ill-tempered trip to emergency for x-rays and treatment for Victor’s fractured wrist which, contrary to all evidence, had apparently been Sherlock’s fault.

John simply brushed his fingers over Sherlock’s cheek and then he left. A few moments later, Sherlock heard the loo flush and then the shower start up.

Some minutes after that, when John was almost more soap than man, the shower curtain was pulled aside. John blinked at Sherlock, naked on the bath mat, as Sherlock looked at him.

“I don’t know what I like,” Sherlock confessed tersely, “In terms of… non-coital preferences. My previous sexual experience was generally more…” he grimaced, “Concerned with the other participant.” He scowled at John’s suddenly troubled -going-on-outraged expression. “I was never forced into anything, John. I was always a consenting participant.”

John was not mollified.  He stood there scowling as the shower sluiced soap bubbles from his skin. “Your previous partners were utter pricks, to a man.”

“And woman.”

“Right. Everyone, gender aside, who didn’t consider what you needed and wanted and didn’t notice that you wanted something different, they were all selfish little shits. Give me a list of their names sometime, and I’ll go and punch each and every one of them in the eye.”

“I like it when you’re unnecessarily protective.”

John made a noise suspiciously like ‘humph’.

“Especially when you’re naked in the shower and covered in foam.”

That made John laugh at last. “Yeah. Well. What I lack in being imposing I make up for with stealth and good aim.”

“Demonstrably true.” Sherlock reached out and placed a hand on John’s chest. The shower ran in rivulets over his hand, down his arm. “What I meant was… the other thing you said. The… bathing. Thing. We could try that. After a long abstinence, I’m only recently used to being touched at all, except by medical professionals. You offer a unique opportunity to transition from the medical to the personal.”

Sherlock had kept his tone light, bantering, but instead of joking back, John lifted the hand on his chest to his mouth. He kissed the knuckles, the palm, the wrist. “All right,” he murmured, “Come in here then.”

Sherlock stepped into the tub, under the falling water, and acquiesced willingly when John gathered him into his arms, kissed his lips, then his temples. When Sherlock closed his eyes, John kissed the closed lids as well.

“I don’t have to wash you everywhere…” John began.

“You can,” Sherlock said, “I trust you not to try anything I don’t want.”

“Good.” John kissed him again before reaching for the flannel. “But you can tell me to stop, any time. For any reason.”

“I know.”

“Lean up against the wall here for now. I’ll start with your back.”

With a warm, soapy cloth, John washed Sherlock all over, starting at the nape of his neck. He kept his touch firm and gentle and washed Sherlock’s back and legs; nudged him to turn and washed his arms and chest.  The warm water ran over the both of them, sensual and comforting without being arousing.

Sometimes John stopped to run his fingers softly over a scar – most often the new ones, the ones John had discovered after Sherlock’s time away. The burn scar on his hip, the thin lines from three different knives on three different occasions on his torso, the dent in his thigh from a desperate ten minutes with a killer and a screwdriver.

John was careful as he cleaned around Sherlock’s backside and genitals, not lingering but also not embarrassed. He scrubbed his soaped-up fingers briskly through Sherlock’s pubic hair, where John’s semen had dried, and swiped the sudsy cloth between and under his legs several times, rinsing the flannel under the running water each time until the soap was gone.

Sherlock thought John was done when he reached out of the shower to grab a towel from the rack. Instead, John folded the towel and put it on the edge of the bath.

“That should be more comfortable to sit on for a while.”

John guided Sherlock down to sit on the towel, and for his part Sherlock simply floated along with John’s hands, content to turn and move and sit as he was bid. When John placed a hand at the base of Sherlock’s neck and nudged him forward under the water, he obeyed without demur. He leaned his head against John’s ribs and let the water flow around his head, plastering his hair to his scalp. He heard John uncap the shampoo and just waited in pleasant anticipation for John’s palm to begin lathering the product into his hair. From this position, his face was sheltered from the streaming water, and again he went with every gentle push and shift until his hair was washed and rinsed, conditioner had been applied, then that too rinsed away.

John pushed Sherlock’s damp hair back from his face and then kneeled in the bottom of the tub. He took first one of Sherlock’s hands, then the other, washing and massaging the palm, the finger, the webbing between. Then John did the same for each of Sherlock’s feet, ensuring Sherlock was propped against him, balanced and held steady.

Finally, John turned off the shower and stepped onto the mat. He gave himself a cursory wipe and wrapped a towel around his waist before helping Sherlock, strangely compliant, to his feet.

Then, with as much care as he’d taken to wash Sherlock, he began to dry him. John fetched several of the clean towels from the cabinet for the purpose. He dried Sherlock’s lower half and wrapped a towel around him, then his upper half and added another dry towel across his shoulders. He sat Sherlock on the closed toilet seat (cushioned by another clean, folded towel) and carefully massaged a clean towel against Sherlock’s scalp, absorbing the water from his hair.

John was humming a song by now, and it really wasn’t that he was a terrible singer so much as he chose such terrible songs. Sherlock didn’t know this one.

“What’s that?” he asked, voice almost a slur from relaxation.

John smiled and sang the words. “All you do is call me, I’ll be anything you need…”

Sherlock only laughed, until John got to the part: “Show me round your fruitcage, cos I will be your honey bee…”

“That’s an appalling song, John.”

“And not entirely appropriate,” John admitted, “I was just thinking of the _anything you need_ part. I forgot what the rest of it meant.”

Sherlock had not the faintest idea what _any_ of it meant. “What the hell is a fruitcage?”

“Doesn’t matter.” John had knelt and was drying the spaces between Sherlock’s long toes with devoted attention. “I’m not the honey bee anyway. That would be you.”

“I am not a honey bee, John.” He said it drowsily, though. It didn’t matter.

John dropped a kiss onto one foot before he lowered it to the ground. “You’re lovely.”

“That’s not what people usually say.”

“People are idiots.”

Still kneeling, John leaned up to tug the towel around Sherlock’s shoulders closer in, catching a drip of water that escaped from Sherlock’s hair, onto his clavicle, trickling down. He dabbed it up with the cloth. John’s finger brushed over one of the knife wounds, and lingered.

Sherlock opened sleepy eyes to look at John’s expression. He could read John’s thoughts, as clearly as if John were saying them aloud.

_You have been touched, not just by doctors. You’ve had hands on you that didn’t care what you wanted; you’ve needed medical care; and hands were laid on you in violence - the people who did this to you._

The tension was in John’s shoulders and hands; the lines around his mouth and eyes.  Sherlock didn’t want that.

“It’s all past, John,” he said softly, “All of it dead and gone, and now there’s _you_. There’s _us_. There’s _this_. Being…” Sherlock had to think for a moment to find the word. That word, the feeling of it, that was new too. “ _Treasured_. The rest doesn’t matter any more.”

John surged up to kiss Sherlock, to hug him, to run gentle hands across the body that hardly knew, before, that such tenderness could exist.

“I love you,” John breathed against his cheek and sat back on his haunches.

John had a new expression then, and it made Sherlock run his fingers around the ridges of John’s eyes, and the lips making that interestingly satisfied smile.

“You look smug.” 

John laughed, the tension gone. “I feel smug.”

“Is this enough for you then?” Sherlock hadn’t meant to sound so uncertain. He didn’t feel uncertain. He felt fantastic.

Instead of immediately answering the question, John said in reply: “You liked that, didn't you? The _bathing thing_?”

Well, you didn’t have to be a genius to have noticed that Sherlock had, indeed, _loved_ the bathing thing. “It would never have occurred to me until you suggested it,” he acknowledged, “But yes. I liked it. It can stay.” 

John’s smile was wide, blinding, brilliant. “This is why it's enough.”

“Why?” 

“You have... afterglow,” John said, “It's what you want. And I can do that for you – give you something you want that gives you an afterglow. Of course I'm smug.” 

Sherlock considered that. “So am I.”

“Excellent.”

Back in the bedroom, towels were swapped for clean pyjama pants and dressing gowns. Sherlock flopped onto the sofa in the living room. When John came over some minutes after with cups of tea, a packet of biscuits, his newspaper and a medical journal, he sat up long enough for John to drop down and then stretched out, his head in John’s lap. He adopted his thinking pose, then resurfaced long enough to take one of John’s hands and place it against his sternum.

“Shh,” he said, and John took his cue to sit quietly, sipping tea and reading with one hand, anchoring Sherlock with the other.

Two hours later, Sherlock’s eyes flew open. “Phone!”

John blinked, took Sherlock’s phone from his own dressing gown pocket and handed it over, returning to the crossword he’d taken up again. “Which case?” he asked absently, his pen hovering over one of the crossword clues.

“The Marbury assault and theft. It was the business partner’s daughter.”

“Ha. I told Lestrade you’d work it out. He had the temerity to be _unconvinced_.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock finished texting his solution and dropped the phone on the coffee table. He looked up into John’s face.

“John?”

“Hmm?”

“Haptic.”

“Sorry?”

“Thirty four across.”

“You’re not even looking.”

Sherlock gave him a ‘do I need to explain’ look and John laughed. “ _Relating to touch_ ,” John read from the puzzle.

“Or,” Sherlock expanded, “something characterised by a predilection for the sense of touch.”

“I love a haptic consulting detective,” said John, “To use it correctly in a sentence. 

“Also, as a noun: John Watson is adept at communication through the use of haptics.”

“Ah. Here’s one I know. Nine down. Seven letters. _Fulfilled; satisfied._ ”

“Content,” said Sherlock.

“Yup,” agreed John, dropping a kiss onto Sherlock’s forehead and completing the puzzle.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Untouched [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6651466) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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